Netflix just revealed our first look at its massive new sci-fi film

The Russo brothers are in a time of transition. After leaving the Marvel Cinematic Universe with a bang with back-to-back Avengers films, the directing team tried their hand at creating their own franchises with Extraction And The gray manboth created on Netflix. But after a brief respite, the Russos will return to the mothership for another pair of Avengers adventures: doomsday And Secret Wars.

Before that happens, though, the Russos have one more movie in the works: the Netflix original. The Electric State. Like their other recent projects, it’s not based on a popular IP, but it seems to share some of the epic and genre-bending hallmarks of the MCU. The Electric State is a sci-fi road trip slated for release early next year. We finally get our first look at the film and it takes place in a wasteland of sentient robots that could rival Marvel itself.

The Electric Statebased on Simon Stålenhag’s 2018 book of the same name, is set in an alternate version of 1994, following a massive conflict between robots and humans. The humans won and the remaining robots were exiled to an exclusion zone. The film follows Michelle (Millie Bobby Brown), a young woman who believes a robot holds the secret to finding her long-lost brother. She is accompanied by Keats (Chris Pratt), a veteran who now works as a smuggler; and a construction robot named Herman (voiced by Anthony Mackie.)

As they pass through the robot ghetto, they find a gang of robots who want to fight for their rights, led by Mr. Peanut (voiced by Woody Harrelson.) Yes, this is the real Planters mascot, under the form of a “marketing robot”. The awkwardness of the character choice is very deliberate.

“The intention was to create complex feelings for you, both funny and tragic,” Joe Russo said. Vanity Fair. “The mythology behind the film is that robots were created in this world to be nice to look at, not feel threatening, and to make you love them. To make you smile, sell you things, take care of you. They therefore have a caricatured appearance by design in the film.

It’s exactly the kind of movie the Russos need to get back into the swing of things: whimsical and full of sci-fi, but also decidedly sillier than the Avengers films with their monumental twists and turns.

“This movie is actually kind of a remarkable bridge for us to get back to that,” Anthony Russo said. Vanity Fair. “It’s an interesting prelude to returning to Marvel and trying to continue this story.”

The Electric State premieres on Netflix in early 2025.